


The Accidental Relationship

by Alvitr



Series: The Accidental Relationship [2]
Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Oral Sex, devirginization of Howard Moon, pranks gone very wrong, silly hijinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-30
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-24 05:05:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4906630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alvitr/pseuds/Alvitr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vince tries to get revenge on Howard and also fails pretty badly.</p>
<p>Originally written in November 2010.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Accidental Relationship

It had all come about accidentally. He'd wanted to get a bit of his own back against Howard. Even though Howard's prank had gone hideously, hilariously wrong, Vince had been ... annoyed by it. More than he could let on. Why was Howard so clingy? Clingy, and yet, utterly aloof. All of these mixed messages – I need you. Be my friend and then Get away, you're beneath me! It had served him right really, being forced to witness exactly what he'd tried to disrupt but, despite all this, the thought of Howard watching him fuck that guy, whose name Vince had never even learned properly, made him burn with shame. Shame did not agree with Vince. He was not built for it. It gave him an irritated, put-upon feeling, and the one who'd put it upon him ought to pay for it, as far as he was concerned.

The idea for how this payment should be exacted was never carefully worked out in Vince's mind. He didn't do plans. He just went with what felt right at the time. And so the vague assertion that he should get Howard drunk evolved naturally into get him drunk and embarrass him and then into get him drunk and embarrass him by talking about sex and finally, found its natural conclusion in get him drunk and embarrass him by having sex with him. Evolution was indeed a mysterious process, with incredible and unforeseen results.

Getting an inebriated Howard to have sex with him was remarkably easy. A good two thirds of it probably lay in the inebriation, but at the time Vince drunkenly wondered if maybe Howard had subconsciously enjoyed his peep show a few weeks ago more than he was capable of admitting. No matter; if Vince was perfectly honest with himself – something he had a hard time not doing, as Vince was a bad liar, even to his own person – he'd enjoyed it more than he should have anyway. The idea that Howard had been watching, that is, not the sex. The sex that night had been pretty mediocre, and might have been improved a lot if he'd been certain at the time of Howard's presence. The thought made him blush, doubly so, because Howard was well present as he was thinking it. At that exact moment he was watching Vince finger himself with a dumbstruck expression on his face, his hand loosely cupping his own painfully hard cock as though he'd forgotten how to fondle himself. Vince felt stretched between the polar opposite emotions of amusement and affection, and snuffed out both reactions as quickly as possible. What do I do next? he wondered, as Howard crawled hesitantly over to him in response to Vince's come hither look. Wait until he falls asleep, then take photos of him, and hang them all over the flat? Or the city? Or send them to every jazz club in the country?

But by the time they were done, Vince felt loose-boned and sleepy, and Howard was making a droning sound in his chest that was almost a snore and that made Vince's whole body relax and his mind go hazy, and he didn't feel like taking any pictures.

The next morning, Vince thought Howard's profound mortification was funny in and of itself to count as a successful conclusion to the prank, but then later in the shop he noticed Howard casting cow-eyes at him every so often, and realized that the prank simply hadn't ended at all. He was in it for the long haul. 

And so it went. Howard got better and better with each successive shagging, and Vince was really starting to enjoy himself, truth be told, far more than he'd expected he would. The joke was going well. He just wasn't quite sure where the punchline was.

*

 

"Let me get this straight," Leroy said after a moment of stunned silence. "You ... and Howard ... that's Howard Moon, right, not some other Howard I ain't never met? Okay. You two are havin' it off?"

Vince shrugged and took a sip of his drink nervously. "Yeah?"

"Since when?" Leroy asked.

He tried to calculate how long it had been going on. "Two ... well, almost three weeks, I guess."

Leroy still looked shell-shocked. "I wondered where you'd been," was all he said.

"What do you mean?" Vince asked, but even as he said so, he realized that this was the first night he'd actually gone out in a little over a week. He and Howard had been having sex every night lately. He'd only gone out tonight because he and Leroy'd had a standing engagement. He wasn't quite sure how and when the sex had gotten so regular, it was just that he and Howard tended to gravitate towards Vince's bedroom after dinner and one thing led to another and then ... the problem was, it was just so good. He remembered a few nights ago, when Howard had, for the first time, managed to make Vince come without even touching his dick, just by fucking him and hitting his prostate over and over. There'd been such a look of triumph on his face afterwards, and alongside the numbing ecstasy of his own orgasm, Vince had felt a little thrill at it, like he'd done a good job. At what, he wasn't sure. Teaching Howard how not to be an embarrassing virgin? Even now he felt sort of melty and pleased at the memory, enough that he found himself glancing at his watch to check the time (he'd told Howard he'd be back a little after midnight), and realized he hadn't been listening to what Leroy was saying.

"I mean, what is it, then, exactly?" Leroy asked him, and at Vince's look of confusion, sighed. "What you two are ... doing."

Vince shrugged.

"You do realize what most people'd call it?" Leroy asked very slowly and deliberately.

Conspiracy? Vince wondered. Emotional blackmail? A nauseating throb of guilt that he'd been trying to suppress for some time now riled through him. Guilt was his second least-favorite emotion, after shame. 

"A relationship," Leroy said meaningfully, and raised his glass to Vince. "Cheers, mate."

"What?" Vince asked, his voice going comically high. He and Howard hadn't really spoken about what was going on much. The thing with Howard was, either he wanted to talk and talk and talk about things without end, or else he wouldn't say a word, out of fear or simple discomfiture. In this case, the latter had reigned, and Vince had found it totally agreeable, up until this very moment. Did Howard really think they had a relationship?

Oh. Of course he did.

Vince felt sick.

Leroy, who'd been holding out his glass for several minutes waiting for Vince to toast him, shrugged and drained the rest of his drink. "Cheer up, Vince," he said, correctly deducing the reason for Vince's sudden distress (which was very clearly visible from the look of horror on his face). "It could be worse."

Vince looked at him in wonder, as though he'd just told him that "Tubthumping" had been an excellent song, or that highwaters were quite trendy, or that he really could go for an all night marathon of Cash in the Attic. "How?" he asked, unable to formulate a more complicated sentence.

"Listen," Leroy said, "Howard, he ain't a bad sort. I mean, you two wouldn't be friends otherwise – though I have to admit, the fact that you are's always mystified me a bit. But, he's loyal –"

"Most of the time," Vince interjected.

"—I mean, he ain't stabbed you in the back yet, has he? More than you can say about most of the lot you hang about with."

"You never have either," Vince mumbled. "Does that mean we should get married?"

"Er, thanks, but no thanks, Vince. I ain't buttered that way, if you catch my drift." 

"You know what I mean," Vince said. "That ain't a good reason. And I don't want to be ... in a ... fucking relationship. Christy."

"Well then," Leroy said, and gave him a shrug. "That's that, then? You'd better clear things up then. Before they get out of hand."

"Yeah," Vince muttered. "I should." Like they ain't already. His mobile was ringing. It was after midnight, and Howard wondered when he'd be home.

*

 

"Have a good time with Leroy?" Howard asked when he got home. Vince stood near the door, taking a long time taking off his jacket, and considered the fact that, just a few weeks ago, Howard's response to him coming home from being out anywhere would have been passive aggressive and snide. Now he was standing in the doorway between the parlor and the kitchen, leaning against the frame and smiling. Vince felt a sudden urge to walk over to him and slide his arms around his waist and kiss him; the impulse was so powerful that he actually took a step forward before stopping himself.

"Fine," he said. "He says hello."

Howard smiled. "I haven't seen Leroy in ages," he mused, rubbing his jaw. "I ought to give him a ring. Anyway, I was just about to make some tea. Do you want some?"

Vince nodded, and Howard disappeared into the kitchen. Taking off his boots, he stood them in the corner (Howard always got on his case if he left them in the middle of the floor) and started to sit on the settee; then he thought better of it and moved over to one of the armchairs. Whenever he and Howard sat next to each other on the settee lately and they were alone in the flat, things tended to get out of hand. It was like they were two magnets attracted to each other. Or, Vince thought, translating the analogy into something he understood better, like two shirts just out of the dryer that were all clingy with static. 

Howard brought the tea in, looked a little disappointed for a moment that Vince was curled up in the chair by himself, and then sat down on the edge of the settee, the end nearest Vince. "Well," he said, brightly.

Vince smiled at him vaguely, and tried to think of how to begin this conversation. He felt like a drowning man flailing around for something to grab onto. He was about to blurt out something which was probably very ill-advised when Howard got there first.

"I've been meaning to have a little chat with you, Vince, and this seems as good a time as any," he said. He was doing that thing he did when he was nervous but trying to sound cheerful and professional. His moustache kept curving up and down, like a bouncing parenthesis.

"Er ... what about?" Vince asked, casually taking a sip of tea and trying not to choke on it.

"I just wanted to say ..." Howard steepled his hands, then unsteepled them, then placed them on his knees, then crossed his arms. Watching this weird, acrobatic dance made Vince feel dizzy, so much so that he had to close his eyes. This made Howard's next words even more disorienting: "I'm grateful."

"Grateful?" Vince repeated, opening one eye curiously. 

"Yes," Howard said. "For ... everything really. But especially that you ... that you could find it in your heart to forgive me."

"Forgive you?" Vince repeated again, feeling like a parrot.

"For playing that horrible trick on you," Howard clairified. "For invading your privacy like that. I feel terrible about it."

You feel terrible, Vince thought. At some point in the conversation a sinkhole had opened up in the pit of his stomach, and all of his innards were being sucked into it, and were possibly being sent to another dimension. 

"I know that we've both played some pretty nasty tricks on each other. But what I did was ... I went too far. I see that now."

Shakily, Vince put his cup of tea down. 

"So ... I wanted to give you my sincerest apologies, Vince. I'm sorry."

Vince rested his elbows on his knees and put his face in his hands. 

"Is that all right?" Howard asked, a slight tremor creeping into his voice.

"Yes," Vince said faintly. "It's all right."

"Oh, good," Howard said. "That's a ... phew. What a relief. Now ... now I feel like we can, well, move forward. With the future. With us."

Oh God, Vince thought, oh God oh God oh God. What have I done? I have well fucked up.

He sat up, trying to think of what to say to straighten all this out with minimal damage, but in the intervening moment Howard had stood up and was leaning against the arm of Vince's chair, his face very close, smiling at him. Vince opened his mouth. Howard leaned down and kissed him.

It was a good kiss. No, it was a great kiss. Howard had gotten frighteningly good at this, especially. So Vince couldn't really be blamed for getting distracted from his original purpose, could he? He had a hundred and eighty pounds of hulking Northerner turning the full force of his bottomless affection on him, and he was a little drunk and a little distressed. Vince wasn't very good at denying himself things he wanted, and increasingly over the past few weeks, Howard had become the only thing he wanted.

They wound up on the settee anyway, Vince crawling into Howard's lap insistently, and Howard sliding his hands down and down Vince's back to settle on the curve of his arse. Vince's hips had taken on a mind of their own and he found himself rocking back and forth, grinding his erection into Howard's lap, while Howard made little gasping noises in between their kisses. Vince loved those noises, loved how even now, a few weeks on, Howard still acted surprised at Vince making him feel good.

But he also loved this, he thought, as Howard suddenly stood up and tugged Vince towards his bedroom forcefully – how lately Howard had started to get more forward and demanding. The rapid fluctuation from innocence and inexperience to eagerness and forcefulness made his head reel. 

They fell together onto the bed, the same bed he'd fucked many random people in over the last two months since he'd moved in, including Bennywhatshisname while Howard watched from the floor. Vince had noticed this morning that recently his bed always smelled like Howard, even right after he'd changed the sheets, as though his odor had permeated right down to the mattress. This had made him feel profoundly uneasy for some reason, and maybe that's why he'd told Leroy what was going on. He'd gotten in over his head. He'd needed advice.

Even if he wasn't doing a very good job following it, right now. 

Howard surprised him by climbing on top of him, just pushing him down and then sitting back lightly on Vince's thighs. He was smiling weirdly as he went about popping open the button on Vince's jeans and then pulling down the zipper. 

"Howard?" Vince asked questioningly, propping himself up on his elbows, and then falling back as Howard slid down his body, leaned over, and took Vince's cock in his mouth.

They'd tried this out a few times before, Vince first showing Howard how it was done, much to Howard's excitement, and then Howard having a go at it himself, with varying degrees of success. But Howard had somehow improved an awful lot since the last time, and had the glow of pride of someone showing off their new skills to the one who had taught them. Vince pulled his knees up and spread his thighs wider, letting Howard go at it; he was being very careful to keep his teeth away and not gag, and he was even using his tongue more. How'd he get the practice anyway? He suddenly imagined Howard fellating a banana. He wasn't sure how he felt about this. Maybe he'd just studied it in a book? Vince put a hand over his mouth to stifle a laugh, but wound up stifling a groan as Howard began to massage his balls. All of a sudden he was very close, embarrassingly close, to orgasm. His back was arching up off the bed and he couldn't catch his breath, and desperately he tried to pull Howard away, because he wasn't really sure Howard was ready yet to start swallowing. He managed to do so just in time, or so he thought. At the crucial moment he was a bit too distracted by coming most of his brains out, while what brains he had left were spinning dizzily with fantasies of a banana-sucking, sex manual-reading Howard. 

Afterwards, he felt like the inside of his skull was too hot. Even opening his eyes took a great deal of effort. When he finally managed to, and had blinked several times to clear his vision, he saw that Howard was sitting on the edge of the bed, pulling tissues out of a box. For a moment he absurdly thought that Howard was crying.

"Oh, shit," he muttered, sitting up. Howard wasn't crying. He was wiping Vince's come off of his face. "Sorry, sorry, sorry," he muttered, snatching a huge handful of tissues from the box and pressing it, uselessly, against Howard's face. He was mortified.

Howard gave him a tentative smile. "It's all right," he said. His voice sounded unusually hoarse and husky, and Vince felt a little shiver go through himself. "I ... well ... I sort of let it happen. On purpose."

"What?" Vince asked, for second time tonight letting out that startled squawk. 

"Well, I have ... heard ... that some people find ... doing that ... you know ..." Howard cleared his throat here and swallowed hard. "Ejaculating on someone's face, it's supposed to be ... sexy? But, well, it was kind of uncomfortable, and you were taking a bit so ..."

Vince hid his face against Howard's arm and shook with suppressed laughter. When he looked up, Howard a sort of pleading, moronic expression on his face – Please! Keep me from saying more! I can't stop talking! Vince decided to take pity and save him, and leant up and kissed him, tasting salty, musky come all over his mouth, and loving it. "Sorry I missed it," he told him. "I'll be more attentive next time, right?" 

Two spots of redness formed on Howard's cheeks, and his ears turned scarlet, but he beamed and nodded. Vince let his hand rest on Howard's inner thigh, then slid up to the warmed, swollen mound at the crotch of his trousers, and rubbed. Howard's face got even redder, and let out a low, unhinged moan. Vince set to work thoroughly overwhelming him. Howard didn't have a great deal endurance as it was (not that Vince could complain after his own performance that night), and he was already pretty riled up. Vince managed to get him out of his trousers and pants, and pulled him down to lay on top of him, and Howard lost whatever control over his body he had left anyway. He was kissing Vince and rubbing desperately against him. Vince barely had to do anything, except stroke his back soothingly as he came with a gut-wrenching cry. 

"This is a messy business, isn't it," Howard said matter-of-factly later. Vince thought it might get a lot messier if they didn't get up and clean off soon, but he didn't feel like moving at all. Howard's body was a like a big, warm blanket against him. Howard also did not seem much inclined to rise, though he'd probably regret it bitterly later.

"Thank you again, Vince," Howard said softly, his breath starting to fall into the regular pattern that heralded sleep. Vince's heart sink. Oh. I've done it again, ain't I? Yes. Yes, he had. In fact, if anything, he seemed to have made things even worse. 

As Howard dozed off, he considered his options. He could end it all tomorrow morning and most likely absolutely break Howard's heart and destroy whatever friendship they had; or, he could just ... keep going? Can I ... do that? he wondered. Do I want to?

He looked down at Howard, who was presently drooling on Vince's chest (since Vince had gotten an awful lot of his own bodily fluids on Howard's person this evening, it didn't seem right to complain about it). Was this really all so bad? So, perhaps suddenly becoming Howard's ... what? boyfriend? hadn't been quite what he'd intended to happen when he'd just finally got his own bedroom after sharing one with him for years. Though, to be honest, it hadn't always been as fun as he'd thought it would be, and he'd been sleeping a lot better this last week or so since Howard had started staying in his room every night ... Vince sighed. He'd lost the thread of his argument. And he was feeling awfully tired, and he was very comfortable right now, even if Howard's weight was making his right leg go to sleep. 

I guess I can live with it for now, he thought as he drifted off. Just so long as he doesn't want to get married or something. Oh Christy, who am I kidding? This is Howard, after all. Well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

*

 

Several months later, a few days before Christmas, Howard, Vince, and Leroy all met up at a pub down the road. It was a trendy pub, to satisfy Vince's standards, but wasn't filled with loud, pumping music and seizure-inducing lighting, to keep Howard happy. (Leroy was generally happy anywhere. This came in useful when you had two friends with as divergent tastes as Howard and Vince.) Leroy and Vince had not seen each other since the night they'd met up for drinks, and he and Howard had only spoken on the phone a few times in the last half-year. 

Things were quite different from the last time the three of them had been gathered together in the same room, Leroy thought. Back then he'd been witness to the tragicomedy of Howard and Vince alternating the role of antagonizer and antagonizee, each only emerging from their sulk in order to rally the troops against the other. He hadn't been sure what to expect when he met them today; Vince hadn't been exactly wordy on the subject whenever they talked on the phone, changing the subject away from Howard, or any Howard-and-Vince related topics, if they did come up at all. But he only had to get a glimpse of them as they came through the door to see that, indeed, everything was all right. All right enough that Howard had a hand at the small of Vince's back, though when Vince noticed that Leroy was looking, he self-consciously ducked away into the booth. Howard followed him, sitting very closely so that their arms touched, a happy, relaxed smile on his face.

They maneuvered the opening pleasantries without much difficulty, and ordered drinks, and updated each other on recent events, except for the event Leroy was most interested in. That came later, after they'd each had at least one round, and Vince had already had two, and was looking a little less uptight, actually leaning against Howard a bit.

"Well, Leroy," Howard said, jovially. "I've got some important news to break to you. Vince and I – well, we're getting married."

Leroy raised an eyebrow. Vince jumped in his seat and, for lack of a better term, flailed. "What! Howard! No – I mean – I ain't said yes yet! Oh Christy." He folded his arms on the table and pillowed his head in them.

"You will," Howard said, with uncharacteristic certainty, and patted Vince on the back. "Don’t worry, you will. You can't resist Howard Moon's charm for long. Skiddly-pah-pow!" He stood up, slapping the table as he went. "I'll be back," he said. "Just going to the loo."

After he'd disappeared towards the back of the pub, Leroy leaned over and poked Vince in the arm. "So? Are you?"

"What?" Vince asked, his voice muffled by his arms.

"Going to say yes?"

Vince lifted his head and, after a second, gave him a little half smile. "Yeah," he said. "Probably."

"Well then," Leroy said, and raised his glass, as he had months ago when he and Vince had first discussed this budding accidental relationship. "Cheers, mate."

Vince sighed and picked up his own glass, and knocked it against Leroy's. "Cheers, Leroy."

**Author's Note:**

> Here is a quick summary of the wedding, culled from the LJ comments:
> 
> "Naboo gives Vince away. Bollo is the ringbearer. Leroy is Vince's maid of honor. Lester is Howard's best man, and loses the ring."


End file.
